Budget deal changes loan-collection policies. Two changes involving the collection of federal student loan debt would contribute about $5 billion in savings to the broad budget deal announced last week. The compromise worked out by Sen. Patty Murray (D-WA) and Rep. Paul Ryan (R-WI) would reduce the compensation that companies receive for rehabilitating defaulted student loans made under a now-defu...
Pell Grants subject of House hearing on Higher Ed Act. The House Education and the Workforce Committee's Subcommittee on Higher Education and Workforce Training held a hearing on Pell Grants as part of its series of hearings on the reauthorization of the Higher Education Act. House Republicans expressed some doubts about recent expansions of the Pell Grant program, while Democrats vowed to defend ...
Study on frequent testing. According to a study released in the journal PLoS One, frequent testing improves overall performance in college students and reduces achievement gaps.
University use of patents. The Brookings Institute released a study that explored the ways universities try to capitalize on research and patents. The study looked at schools that licensed their patents and at schools tha...
New England will continue to experience a slow jobs recovery through 2017, according to economists speaking last week at the New England Economic Partnership (NEEP) Fall 2013 Economic Outlook Conference in Boston.The modest job growth from 2013 through 2017 will be strongest, percentage-wise, in the construction industry, fueled partly by a housing rebound, followed by professional and business se...
House and Senate hearings on federal student aid. Both chambers of Congress discussed ways to restructure the federal government's student aid programs. The House Education and the Workforce Committee held a hearing on federal student aid and on Thursday, the Senate Health, Education, Labor and Pensions (HELP) Committee held a hearing on the same issue. Lawmakers discussed simplifying the administ...
Bill targets for-profit schools' funding. Senate Majority Whip Dick Durbin (D-IL) introduced the Protecting Our Students and Taxpayers (POST) Act (S.1659), which would aim to make for-profit colleges and universities less reliant on federal funding. Under current law, the "90-10 rule" requires universities to get at least 10% of their funding from non-federal sources. The proposed bill would repla...
College net prices stable, reports find. Last week, the College Board released reports on "Trends in College Pricing" and "Trends in Student Aid" which found that, even though the price of college has grown, the cost to students has remained stable for the past decade. The report shows that the net cost of tuition, fees, room and board for the average student at a private, nonprofit college is abo...
New data linking poverty and less pursuit of higher education. A report released by the National Student Clearinghouse provides new data showing that students from high schools serving large concentrations of low-income families are less likely to enroll or persist in college than their peers from schools with a more affluent population.
CFPB report on student loans. The Consumer Financial Protec...
Calls for action on ESEA. Education Secretary Arne Duncan on Monday called for action on a long-overdue overhaul of the elementary and secondary school law, contending that Congress has "failed to carry out its basic core responsibilities on education." The last reauthorization of the law, known as No Child Left Behind, expired in 2007 and has been criticized by both parties as requiring unachieva...
Shutdown's limited initial effects of education. The U.S. Department of Education is on partial shutdown, with many employees furloughed, but school districts are functioning in full. The effects of the government shutdown would be harder felt in the education sector if the shutdown were to continue for a prolonged period. Pell grants and federal direct student loans will largely be unaffected by ...
Budget deal changes loan-collection policies. Two changes involving the collection of federal student loan debt would contribute about $5 billion in savings to the broad budget deal announced last week. The compromise worked out by Sen. Patty Murray (D-WA) and Rep. Paul Ryan (R-WI) would reduce the compensation that companies receive for rehabilitating defaulted student loans made under a now-defu... 
New England will continue to experience a slow jobs recovery through 2017, according to economists speaking last week at the New England Economic Partnership (NEEP) Fall 2013 Economic Outlook Conference in Boston.The modest job growth from 2013 through 2017 will be strongest, percentage-wise, in the construction industry, fueled partly by a housing rebound, followed by professional and business se...